(FORTUNE Small Business) – Afraid the recession will never end? Worried about deflation? Frightened by the economic consequences of a war in Iraq? Well, aren't we all? But you still have to plan, based on the best assumptions you can find. Unfortunately, the oracle at Delphi hasn't spoken for 2,500 years. That leaves economists, for whose services demand can actually rise when times are toughest--certainly the case at privately held Economy.com, the youngest, smallest, and fastest growing of the national forecasting firms. Founded in 1990 by economist Mark Zandi (you've probably seen him quoted), 43, and his business-side partner, CEO Paul Getman, 46, Economy.com was born of frustration at the way traditional economic forecasting firms doled out data to their business clients in high-priced, prepackaged sets. Not very customer-friendly, agreed Zandi and Getman, who had met in graduate school at the University of Pennsylvania and were both laboring at Chase Econometrics. "We said, 'Let's put together a diverse product that appeals to banks,'" says Getman, citing one example, " 'and we'll sell them whatever the firm has for them. We'll put some regional economic analysis in there. We'll put some industry analysis in there, some macro analysis, and we'll say what we think the Fed's going to do.' Boy, did we get our hands slapped fast." The upshot: "We said, 'Fine, you can stay the way you are. We're going to take our marbles and start our own firm.'"

Regional Financial Associates, they named themselves. Snooze. Then Dismal Sciences, which was too cute by half. "Clients hated it," says Getman. "Even if they got the joke, they didn't want to go to their bosses and say, 'We're spending $20,000 a year on a company named Dismal Sciences." Which is how they came to fork over $350,000--8% of company revenues at the time--for the Economy.com URL. That was in December 1999, just before the setting of the dot.com sun. "I was shaking when I signed that check," says Getman.

A visit to Economy.com at its suburban Philadelphia headquarters is like entering a dot-com time warp, from the cheerful, khaki-clad workforce (nearly half own stock in the company, while Getman, Zandi, and Zandi's brother Karl together own 75%) right down to Getman's three pet rottweilers running loose in the hallways. But this is one dot-com that still seems to make sense. No freebies, for one thing. That stock all those employees own? They bought it, which goes a long way toward explaining why Economy.com has never had to dip into the capital markets to finance its growth. Plus there's nothing blatantly incongruous about the business model. "Everything we do works naturally over the Internet, unlike shipping pet food," says Getman, with a nod toward Heidi, asleep on the couch. "Our economists gather data faster. We get data to our clients faster. We get analysis to our clients faster. And we give our clients capabilities to design their own products."

Economy.com distinguishes itself by its focus on subscription sales--90% of revenues--as opposed to one-time consulting gigs. And with consistently high renewal rates for everything from a $150 subscription to The Dismal Scientist, an electronic newsletter, to customized data sets costing as much as $50,000, Getman can tell you right now that revenues in 2003 could reach $10 million. If that happens, it will mark two straight years of better-than-25% growth. That despite a gloomy overall economic outlook unlikely to brighten soon, even though policymakers are "talking about the right things," as Zandi puts it. Here's Zandi's take:

The recession may or may not be over, but the economy is clearly still struggling. Can you please tell us that our difficulties are almost past?

The economy is not going to go anywhere fast. The key weight is the potential war in Iraq. [At the time, UN weapons inspectors were still at work.] Small business people and big business people are not going to aggressively expand their activities until that weight is lifted. It appears as if we're moving to some resolution, and I think the general view is that it will be a relatively smooth kind of event, but you can paint very dark scenarios. That's why businesspeople are in no mood to take risks, and they won't be until that gets resolved.

In the meantime?

It's just the status quo. Payrolls are flat, investment is flat. Businesses are not cutting, but they're not expanding either. It's just basically a nowhere economy. But I do think once we get by Iraq and you add in some fiscal stimulus, by summer or fall the economy should be revving up. I don't think it's going to come roaring back, because the auto and housing industries are going to weaken when the rest of the economy improves; as soon as interest rates push up even a little bit, those two parts of the economy are going to suffer. But I think it will be in a much better place by fall. That's clearly based on the assumption that Iraq goes well and there are no further terrorist attacks.

You mention fiscal stimulus. We know what President Bush and the Democrats have both proposed: tax cuts. As an economist and a small business man, how would you stimulate economic growth?

I think both the President and the Democrats have proposed increasing the amount of equipment spending that can be written off as an expense right up-front, from $25,000 to $75,000. I think that's a great idea, very useful. I also think accelerated depreciation is a good idea. But if you really want to get stimulus, you would make the deadline September of this year as opposed to September of 2004. Right now businesses have no impetus for investing, so they'll wait. If you made it sooner they'd invest now.

A payroll-tax holiday would have been great--highly stimulatory. It could benefit all workers, particularly lower-income workers, some of whom don't pay any income taxes, by lowering the cost of labor so that companies are less likely to lay off their workers. But it would also help employers, particularly small businesses. That would have been a nice easy boost.

A payroll-tax holiday, higher limits on equipment write-offs, and accelerated depreciation. Anything else?

Frankly, I think the best thing the federal government could do for small business is at least begin a discussion with regard to how we're going to tackle our health-care problems. Right now premiums are skyrocketing, and there's absolutely no policy response to it. I think small businesses are very scared. Not only because they have to pay higher premiums this year on top of last year's higher premiums, but because they don't see any light at the end of the tunnel. That's got businesspeople very worried. It will soon be unaffordable. Many are right on the cusp of dropping their coverage altogether. There needs to be some kind of response. I think that would go a long way to lifting confidence.

You haven't mentioned Bush's plan to eliminate the tax on dividends.

It's a very minor stimulus. There is a reasonable argument to be made that there are distortions in the way bus-inesses finance themselves, that they use debt more than equity because of the way the tax code is designed. In an economy that moves up and down, highly leveraged companies have to curtail their activities and don't invest. So from an economic-efficiency perspective, I think it makes sense. I just don't know that it makes a large difference in the grand scheme of things.

All that costs money. You're not worried about the deficit?

Well, I am, but I think the greater concern at this point is that the economy unravels back into recession. Once the economy is on sounder footing, we're going to have to address what will be very large deficits in the future. I don't think this administration will address those issues. If President Bush is reelected, it may be the next President's problem. But there will be problems. The marginal-rate tax cuts are going to be a significant problem because more cutting has to happen to make it work, and then it becomes permanent. I mean, the alternative minimum tax has to be pared. But at this point I am all for providing some stimulus. If the economy were to unravel back into recession, then a lot of nasty things could happen. Monetary policy has run out of room to maneuver, and the whole global economy's a mess. We really need to get going here, otherwise we could get into a real problem.

Meaning what, deflation?

Yeah, it's not inconceivable.

What kind of ugly stuff happens then?

There are different strains of that disease. Under the worst kind you have falling wages as well. And if wages start falling, everyone who has debt is going to default, and the whole banking system could conceivably implode, and there's no credit, and you have a real mess. You can see that to some degree in Japan. Even if wages don't fall, but prices do, businesses are going to have trouble meeting their debt obligations, and they default and they cut back, and it becomes a self-reinforcing process. I mean, one thing that doesn't go away is debt. You've got to pay whether your wages are rising or falling or your profits are rising or falling. So that's the key concern. If prices are falling, the economy gets into a situation it's very difficult to get out of, particularly if monetary policy has played its hand. If interest rates are already low, they go to zero pretty quickly.

Has what you're describing ever happened in this country's history?

Not since the Great Depression.